When I gave up smoking they told me there were two types of smokers, those who chose to smoke and those who decided never to smoke again.

It’s true when you inhale for the first time and the evil lure of nicotine sticks its hooks into your lungs the addiction is there for life. Yes, the muscle memory of the brain loves tobacco like a pre-menstrual woman loves chocolate, needs chocolate, must have chocolate. It’s like writing in a strange way – well, I think so.

With writing, the urge is always there, the need to turn experience, knowledge and inspiration into words on a page.

I’ve been lucky to be able to write freely with no complications for the past decade or so, if I had a story, I could write it down. Now my head is full of new commitments, and lovely as it is to have been given a new sense of purpose, I long to shout ‘just leave me alone for an hour – I want to write!’ But I know an hour wouldn’t be enough. Once I begin scribbling I’ll be there for hours, days, weeks – who knows, as I believe Winnie the Pooh once pontificated.

I’ve noticed of late I’ve been finding another way around the need to write. I keep interrogating the people I meet, once they start talking about themselves they can’t stop and I’ve discovered if you ask questions in a certain way out pour the anecdotes, stories and sometimes you get, ‘I shouldn’t really be telling you this… but—’ or ‘don’t tell anyone that, will you?’ As if I would. But at some point in the future Juan the ambulance man may find his anecdotal nugget in a book.

Not being able to write is aiding my memory. All those irresistible experiences I can't write down, I must share them. Each time I embellish the tale I’m telling a little. It becomes larger, sometimes more colourful, sometimes darker. Every time I retell it, it morphs until it gets to the point (swapping to a baking analogy now) when the recipe is done, adding any more to it would ruin it, make it over-fussy or unpalatable for those of a risk-adverse disposition.

So perhaps like the smokers who gave up and began vaping, gum chewing or crisp munching, I too have found a way around this period in my life when I have a larger, more insistent requirement than writing. Yes, like the Archers Susan Carter I too have become a scurrilous gossip.

Don’t fall in love if you are a writer. Initial discombobulation, then tormented, sleepless nights, twisted internal organs, such agony only a nightly hip-bath full of booze can dissipate for about… 20 minutes.

Any inspiration, imagination, creation is instantly burned out of your mind. Sitting with hands poised like two baby monkeys over the keyboard, only to fall onto it sobbing until the Windows error beep draws you upright again in a tangled mess of hair stuck to (erroneously marketed as waterproof) mascara, dribbles of lachrymosity, oozing mires of mucus, truly a vision of misery.

By this third paragraph you will have deduced the love crater into which I have fallen/been dragged is not a happy one, and you would think being subject to literary leaning I would pitch into the pot of angst/agony/wretchedness, brew in it some intensifying hell plot to create an as yet unknown quantity, an electrifying work of fresh imaginings. No. It doesn’t work like that.

The need to write every day: to chart every happening, observation, conversation encountered has been countered by Mr Wonderful.

I want my words back.

Staring out the window for inspiration was my favourite distraction, now it is meaningless, even storms working their way through the alphabet, cat fights on the lawn, seagulls dropping seasonal fare, damp autumn leaves splatting onto the window only to be ripped away by a wilful wind can’t engage me, because he has. And then the phone rings…

When I’m reading I’m anticipating the end. All the way through I’m looking forward to the winding-up of the plot, the fate of the characters, hoping for slick unwrapping of an intricately-contrived scenario, a shocking reveal; dazzled by a brilliant twist. Sadly, it’s not always the case and the tale can lose piquancy like over-cooked cabbage, or change direction, or worse still, throw in an unbelievable plot jump making no sense at all.

For some readers, it’s the middle of the story they love: the grist, the meat of the tale, where the prose flows, picking-up pace, the characters have peeled away their outer layers, showing the raw, naked turmoil within. I understand why the middle can be a draw as a good story takes the reader from the humdrum of daily life, an escape from stress into another world. Yes, the hub maybe a favourite segment for some, but not for me, by then I’m involved and on my journey to the end (bitter or otherwise).

And when I’m writing fiction – I generally consider the middle of the story is when I can see the end!

Let us not forget the thrill of that first alluring paragraph – fresh uncharted words floating on the page, waiting for eager orbs to fasten upon them, tantalised by a little wordy microcosm of adventure: perchance to learn, be enthralled, cringe or laugh… whatever starts your engine. I can’t consciously remember spurning a story after reading the first paragraph (or novel for that matter) – I confess I did once throw a slim, Parma-violet-coloured volume of chick-lit at the wall after six pages of shoes and cupcakes – side-stepping sweetly like a prima ballerina here, if it’s a novel, and a level of dedication is involved, usually I read the blurb on the back, perhaps a comment or two online, a review here or there, but a short story, I consider is a commitment, and feel compelled to see it through to the end – if it’s squalid I can always have a wash afterwards.

What a job writers have: attempting to create a type-tastic triumph so compelling it will stay with you like a garlic naan. As a writer, the pressure to start this feat of creation is intense, the word-cloud forming above your head, immense.

Baiting your hook. Depending on the breed of reader you wish to ensnare, gore-dazzled horror-fan; sugar-soaked romantic; space-wrangling alien obsessive, or a tough-catch expecting a warped hybrid spanning genres.For lubrication of the mind muscles: I recommend coffee to start the process, water for essential hydration during the continual shifting of chunks of creation (oh, that bit looks so much better at the start) and upon completion, a thumping great glass of your tincture of choice.

What setting to choose? What names to use? Relationships... Theme! Facts? Quick google for a plan… So much information telling you what to write, which advice do you take?

Why do you want to write the story? Must it fulfil certain criteria? In keeping tabs on all the factors involved in your literary project it’s all too easy to forget the structure keeping the words in place. Start-Track-Finish.

But however you wend your way to the end, do try to stay on the field of play.

I was lucky to grow up in the time when computers were still only used in the shadowy realms of Government and the military. When I gathered frogspawn in a jam-jar and caught butterflies in a nylon net, personal computers were a distant futuristic concept, until, that is, I reached the fifth form and a computer turned up one day on a trolley in the maths department and I, and 24 boys, stared at it in silent reverence.I wrote my first book when I was eight. It was about birds with detailed drawings of bones, feathers and eggs. And then when I became a teenager, raddled with angst and acne, I scribbled desperately each night in a diary, of dark thoughts, dreams and foul curses to rain down upon the heads of my bullies. And now, being aged, it occurred to me what do the spotty, doom-raddled youth of today (especially the tech-adverse) do to pour out their deepest confusion, twisted thoughts and anger? I know lots of young people write blogs, but there are some who would not dream of doing so, in case what was in their head became public knowledge, poisoned barbs for their peer group to throw back at them.Writing a diary (or a journal) is a way to get all the pain and trouble, and stomach-churning misery out of your head and onto the page (a page you can lock away from prying eyes) and as it comes out, so may many other thoughts, some of which might be beautifully woven prose. Pretty, sporty, entrepreneurial younglings can set up YouTube channels, write blogs, create websites… but what of the quiet ones? The poets, the songwriters, the novelists? Those who are tortured by their own thoughts because they cannot let them out? This is now a much more connected world than it ever has been and we are all joined by a constant chatter; bombarded with information we may not want to know, or should ever know; facts detrimental to our well-being and restful sleep. Imagine being young and unsure and confronted by a world full of the great potential for disaster – it’s no wonder so many of the young turn to the mindless pursuits of celebrity watching or immure themselves within a screen, snug within the programming constraints of the game. How tragic if the sensitive ones, who could become the great writers of the future, never put pen to page, never realise the euphoria of a mind unleashed. If anyone out there ever does read my blogs on the wonderful world of words, and if you know a tormented, tangled young person, tell them to start a diary, or a journal… or even better, buy them one – and a pen, although... you may have to explain how to use it.

With Bristol Festival of Literature coming up, the Bristol Fiction Writers’ Group have been busy writing for the Flash Slam. If you’ve not heard of Flash Fiction and need a couple of examples, read on:‘For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.’ Ernest Hemmingway.‘Statistically, by the time you reach the age of 25, one of you in this class… will be dead.’ Anonymous.Everything seems to be fast, we want instant delivery of everything – so why not our fiction? But Flash is not a new form of literature, just a style of writing enjoying its turn in the spotlight. But what is Flash Fiction? Can it be defined, other than by its stunning brevity? What makes for good Flash? It’s not a conventional story – Flash can go from extreme concision – a thong of 100 words, to briefs at 250 words, right up to granny pants at 1000. Flash Fiction is too short for fleshed-out characters, plot and, heaven-forfend… a back story!The work needs to be strong, concentrated – no need to water down. Think first impressions, a glimpse, a few words overheard, wrong place, wrong time; right place, wrong person. I don’t think you could prune an existing short story into Flash Fiction, each time you cut, something of the tale would be lost until finally with the essence stripped away, the story would wither, held in place only by punctuation... but that’s just my opinion, use your own. Sharp, or sharply-observed – a word-bomb of wisdom, a flail with the literary lash. Confuse them, amuse them; frighten, shock, or send them off itching to google to see if it’s true. And don’t forget you can lie your head off! It’s all in the cause of entertainment.Always consider your audience. Is the work for a book or the stage? Assonance, alliteration and repetition work better in spoken form. I’ve taken my seat at Flash Fiction events, listened, relished and sometimes, sadly, suffered cringing until grateful applause sent the speaker away. It’s fine to be shocking, even rude, but not for the sake of it – audiences can smell desperation. Concentrated cursing… in context, or in dialogue, please, but not too much or we will pity your attempt to be more outrageous than the others with whom you share a platform. Extraneous expletives, and even worse, a shocking reveal of private parts will have the audience pulling ‘that face’. When I set out to write my pieces of Flash Fiction, I thought about what I had enjoyed most when listening to writers who give good Flash. Just one line from the last event I attended stayed with me, shone out above all the other offerings. It makes me chuckle afresh each time I remember, and no I’m not going to tell you what it was or who it was by, but it was inspired, and one of those lines you think, ‘Damn! I wish I’d written that!’ Good Flash can throw in one word that sets the scene: perhaps politics, history or fashion. Use the senses. Stare at things, think up new descriptions for them. I’ve heard images described in such a way they sent a tremor travelling down my spine – and all in a few lines, less than the health-benefits on a packet of crisps, now that is a skilful way with words. If you try googling how to write Flash Fiction, there is an instant confusion of rules: start in the middle of the story; make the last line explode! Don’t have more than one image, or more than one character; remove all adverbs; don’t have any names… argh! Read all the rules, then make up your own mind what you want to write. If it works, good, if it doesn’t, try again. And because it’s short, you could put the end at the beginning, the middle at the end; mess it all up. It’s the opportunity to play with words – remove all the ‘ands’, ‘thens’ and ‘thats’; try it with commas, just one long sentence. Make it memorable, and have fun.

Evolution of the DashWhere did it come from, this dash? Scouring books and the Net regarding the etymology of the word ‘dash’ throws out several sources. Having considered, I think the most likely foundation is: “I made a little dash with my quill…” From the phrase: ‘It dashes quickly’; from ‘moving quickly’ (noted c1300). That’s a nice image: a writer poised over his quill preparing the first dash.So, it’s been around for a while: the dash. Before the typewriter there was only the hyphen (a small line to link words together) and the dash (a slightly longer line used to separate text and make the distinction between ranges of numbers and words). And then came the typewriter with its punctuation printed on keys (oh, fancy that!). One key held ‘the underscore’: used to underline words for emphasis before the option to italicise became available to anyone outside a printsetter’s, and below it ‘the hyphen’. Are you all out there scanning your keyboards and cursing the underscore as it sinks below the mark? Where are they hiding, those elusive en’s and em’s? Long ago, if you typed two hyphens one after the other and hit the ‘enter’ key on a word processor (remember those? A typewriter with functionality) a long dash would magically appear. Some still use two hyphens together to represent a long dash; very old-hat as punctuation practice nowadays.Common usage continued until we got the computer keyboard and the use of Ascii codes (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) in use with Hexidecimal; this progressed to use of Ascii extended codes. A whole world of symbols lurks behind your keyboard just waiting for you to press alt and another key (keys). The en-dash is alt and then 0150 and the em-dash is alt and then 0151. Note: I didn’t put alt + 0150 – I’ve been caught-out in the past by thinking too literally as well. There are squillions of codes (and changes of usage keystrokes). You can get an astounding array of symbols from using the Ascii codes. But beware: if you have fat fingers like me you may end up with any number of exotic symbols instead of your dash of preference. Just press ‘undo’ on the top toolbar and try again – and for writers using a Mac: press the ‘option’ key, then the hyphen to make an en-dash; for the em-dash: press ‘option’, then the shift key, then the hyphen.But there are transatlantic variations of dash-usage. -- Double-dash – old American/English version of the Em-dash. Americans use the em-dash in place of brackets (which they call parentheses). Where the British would use the en-dash, Americans prefer an em-dash with no spaces around it. Have the Americans simply carried on the ‘no spaces around hyphens’ rule over to the em-dash? Personally, I don’t like to see a lack of spaces around an em-dash – it looks as if the words have been tacked together. The spaces give a more elegant presentation of text.Texting has made the dash popular. The dash makes a text nice and clear, separating out phrases you don’t want your recipient to miss. Just the regular ‘dash’ is available in the symbols menu on a dumb-phone. I’m not up to Smart-phone level yet – gosh, they’re expensive! – but for those that do use ‘devices’: hold down the key for the hyphen and you’ll get three choices pop up: hyphen/en-dash/em-dash.

Emails are usually seeded with dashes; making the content of the message quicker and easier to absorb. Punctuation pedants hate this – you only have to read a few of the grammar boards to realise the extent of this frothing hatred.Yep, punctuation is changing; evolving to reflect our new requirements. It’s an exciting time for those that love to punctuate.

When perusing in a bookstore the other day I suddenly became aware I was actively shying away from any novel with a fondant-coloured book-jacket. It struck me, I was a book snob exercising chick-lit avoidance. Like a phobic in therapy I reached towards the stand. Quick check round – I was safe, no one was in sight. The cover blurb was much as I suspected. A shoe-loving heroine let down by her boyfriend turned to cupcakes. Saved by her best friend, she put on her new trendy trainers, leapt on her bike, and cycled away from the frosting in search of a new Adonis. Would she find one? I shuddered to think. I slapped the book back on the rack and picked up another. After all, one book does not an entire genre make. I scanned the back cover – girl rejected by feckless boyfriend. Git preferred best friend. Girl travels to distant land to rescue generic animals from certain death. Would she realise true love in the jungle? I didn’t care. I moved to the next bookcase and all of a sudden I was back in the time when crisps still contained enough MSG to give you a high. My 12-year-old self, let loose in the local library. The hope the Mills and Boon novels contained… Sexiness. I borrowed an M&B, hid it between a text-book on birds and a historical thriller. When I got home I ravaged the pages seeking a hint of salacious narrative. Such was my disappointment. Not one paragraph stirred even the essence of a hormone. The die had been cast. Romance was out.Yes, not only was I guilty of coveting clique covers I was also a genre elitist. Heinous crimes, both. Book bigotry, if you will. I thought I would take a journey around the shop and look at each section rather than speeding past those that raised a spume of disgust. Sport! I tried, I really tried, to find something to interest me, but found I was looking for lacrosse as I knew it would be either: safer – or absent from the shelves.Now, I love a text book. I collect text-books. Many are still unread on my shelves. But I know they are there waiting for me to absorb their knowledge, almost as if I can possess information by the act of text-book hoarding. I stepped out from the section as it was purse-perilous, and would never be safe territory for me. Classics! Instant ingurgitation. I knew I must move away from the Classics' section, for it fired greed within me. I paused by Classic Fiction. The wonderful covers of the past. Spies lurking under gas lamps; exotic skylines slathered with fabulous fonts. Long ago, when hope and boundless energy were still present, I remember sneaking a peek at the novel my best friend’s sister was reading. The cover sent me straight to moonlit Rome. My spine tingled. My eyes dried with longing as I drooled over the page I tried to understand. The content was too sophisticated for me. I was only eight! I remembered the title and borrowed it years later from the library. A great chiller-thriller.When enmeshed in a book I’ve always felt compelled to keep flipping back to look at the cover. For me it’s a pictorial connection with the author, helping to visualise the world they created. My favourite covers are those with a lively depiction of the characters or settings. And any books that include maps, illustrations or other bursts of quirkiness are always a delightful surprise.Having completed my circuit of the shelves, I was back at the chick-lit section. Was there, I wondered, somewhere in the same bookshop, a reader diving away from novels clad in black, white and red covers, assuming a potential blood-fest much as I had been spurning pastel encased love-lettings?It was time to question the bookiverse, to sum up my literary travels. Are publishers doing authors a disservice by so obviously badging books? Has searching the virtual bookshop given novels a chance to escape genre? In our fast technological world have novels finally been set free?

I was asked on a forum how to become a children’s author (and then a whole bunch of other folk asked the same thing). It’s a good question and since I began writing books the answer has evolved as the author-pool has increased. (This post can also be applied to books for ‘big, grown-up-type people’ too!)If you’ve just started out, you will most likely have no idea how to get your book ‘out there’. And Googling will probably confuse you further or lead you into shark-infested waters inhabited by profit-hungry vanity publishers who are so convincing they will have you believing you are now up there with the big boys and girls when you’ve paid the fabulously-helpful vanity publisher five grand (or perhaps even more). Ahh, money, what doors it will open. You can pay someone to write the book; draw the pictures; design the cover; proof-read/edit the manuscript; do the marketing, or all of these. Or you can throw cash at an agent to manage the process for you. However, to get an agent you will generally have to be an accredited writer; famous; rich; or amazingly, mind-bogglingly talented. If you are a penniless keyboard-pounder (like so many of us are) a different journey will stretch out ahead of you. There are quite a few routes to consider depending on your levels of patience; your budget and expertise (a fan-base will also help). Here are a few ideas to send you off on your quest for success.1.Google children’s books (or novels if writing for adults) similar to the title you have created, seek out the publisher, then contact them to see if they are accepting submissions. 2.Search online for a list of suitable publishers (Duotrope used to be a good free site but they do now ask for a small monthly subscription and this has allowed them to provide more information.) There are many sites that provide lists of publishers; but be aware small publishers can pop-up and die away in a twinkling. You may discover a publisher, get a positive reply and on the strength of this, grab a bottle of Pinot Grigio to celebrate. When you click on the site the following day the website is floating uselessly in cyberspace never to reactivate even though you search desperately day after day. When you do have a list of ‘live’ companies – see who publishes children’s books (or appropriate genres of novels) and look for their requirements – keep on this though and don’t procrastinate or the previous note may well apply to some of your pick of publishers.3.You can self-publish an e-book – this is the swiftest and easiest option. Amazon’s KDP site has honed itself over the years to make the process relatively painless but unless you have hit on a fabulous formula and have a Facebook and Twitter following in the tens of thousands you won’t get rich on this option – having said that you will see your book out there and people will buy it if you price it realistically. Smashwords is an excellent online book publishing site; but it has software known affectionately by authors as ‘The Meatgrinder’; most authors make it their mission in life to get through The Meatgrinder’s jaws in one go. But be warned, it’s a pesky pedantic piece of software and people frequently give up and pay ‘tech-savvy’ geniuses to post a title for them.–Watch-out! Here comes another warning. Each site you click through, or publishing software you use will take full advantage of rookie authors getting stuck and frustrated – don’t be surprised to see frequent ‘Need Help?’ signs. These will generally zap you over to someone ‘tech-savvy’ (yes, them again!) who can assist you for a price. Instead, do check out the forums; all the online publishers have forums and they are full of other creative types suffering for their art and at the point of pitching their laptops out of the window in exasperation. The value of their advice is beyond that of rubies. Or perhaps a more apt analogy would be panning for gold as you have to sift through a lot of silt to get to the shiny yellow-stuff.4.And then we come to Print-On-Demand. Want to see a glossy paperback of your book? Need Help? (Sorry only joking; couldn’t resist it!) This is about level 50 of the game we shall call ‘Author Wars’. You must fight the dragons of technology that absolutely, totally and utterly refuse to accept your book cover; font; or alignment and I guarantee will have you: frothing; shaking and at the point of paying someone when you next get that irritating pop-up ‘Need Help?’. Don’t do it! I tells ya – trust the writers on the forum who have been through the pain and shared it with others. Keep trying and you will succeed. And never forget if your work is good enough you’ll get there… eventually – however long eventually is depends entirely on how committed you are; the quality of your work; the level of tenacity you display, and your standards. Books have to be perfect. Remember this line:Edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit; edit.Good luck out there!

Checking over a manuscript, trying to hone it to perfection; you would think this is a standard job for a sharp-eyed proofreader (or perhaps a team of hawk-eyed proofreaders). But how often do authors find when the final draft has been passed and the book has been published that errors are still evident. Even when the text has passed through a few sets of scanning peepers things still slip through. How? Well, I have a few ideas.Our Own Minds Textbooks and fiction all have ‘blind-spots’ the mind automatically identifies regimentation such as bulleted sections; tables; text by a photo; introductions, (just a few examples) and when it gets to the next occurrence it ‘glosses-over’ what it’s already seen: automatically accepting it as fine and dandy. Don’t always trust your own mind: it has just read the word ‘error’ and accepted it as correct in its context, ‘error’ a couple of lines down should have been the plural and is missed. Other People; Other Factors Unfamiliar words – check each spelling, don’t assume the writer has cut and pasted the word correctly; or has checked their own source data. Titles and subtitles (particularly in emails) are often overlooked and you can find some real eye-watering examples of typos there. Technology Punctuation; spacing; spelling: all are danger areas and should be sought out in isolation. Computers are to blame for a lot of it; because we trust them too much. Using speech marks for example: changing fonts alters the appearance of speech marks; when altering dialogue the speech marks may not update from ‘begin speech’ to ‘end speech’ – easy to miss. Spacing is taken for granted; it looks like a single space so therefore it must be just one space – wrong! Switch on the Pilcrow (the little backwards P on your toolbar: this is the editing icon meaning ‘show hidden characters’). One dot between words is one space. Look how many incidences of double dots appear in your text when the Pilcrow is ‘on’. Autocorrect (default American version on MS Word) delights in changing words you have typed correctly to what it ‘thinks’ is right. (And changing the Autocorrect default to UK resets after the next MS update; don’t waste your time changing it, go and get another biscuit.) Read a sentence, it looks fine; press enter for the next line and read the previous line again; words that were correct a moment ago may well have changed. As a keyboard ages it does have a tendency to react to all those biscuit crumbs built-up over the months and can throw in stealth keystrokes when you aren’t looking. An excess of spacing can throw a spanner in the justification works. And a nasty little hangover from BC (before computers): two spaces after a full-stop – oh, the humanity; imagine the impact on a line of very short sentences. Don’t forget to look for repetition (cut and paste has a lot to answer for). Rules Punctuation is a minefield, transatlantic tripwires where fierce adherence to “The American Way” or “The English Way” can lead to some bitter battles on grammar sites. I give you (--) double-dash, old-style American, or (—) Em-dash, English/new-style American; spaces before and after this punctuation example are ‘no’ in American and ‘yes’ in English. So what’s right in one country may well be seen as wrong in another. How deep do you proofread? I was reading an article the other day which advised the proofreader never to ‘read’ the content or it may distract from the job. If you don’t read the text how will you know if it makes sense? Each proofreader is different; some are drawn to spelling errors; while others despise incorrect, missing or mis-programmed punctuation (see earlier note on successfully confusing your word-processing program) punctuation prejudice is rife out there – don't let it cloud your judgment. Don’t trust yourself; don’t trust your computer; don’t trust your source; and never assume you have finished the job when you’ve done.

Saturday afternoon I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in Hanham Library reading stories to around 30 children and trying to foster in them the need to read. Most of the kids were locked-on and listening, and then there were the two boys twitching about by my side. Both of them seemed to have a fixation with Bugatti’s and zombies and shouted at every opportunity, spoiling the other children’s concentration. Also bizarrely, one of the boys seemed convinced I was a police officer and was there to arrest him. Random questions were thrown at me from the other children – why is writing so great? How do you get an imagination? How do you write a book? For the imagination question I pointed outside the window and said: ‘Look at the High Street, imagine how it looked 300 hundred years ago when highwaymen roamed these parts and the Cockroad Gang met in the Blue Bowl (that got a lot of them bouncing in their seats). ‘Imagine how the street will look in 50 years’ time when hover cars glide up and down and bicycles have no wheels but a long strip allowing you to weave between the hover cars. (Several sci-fi fans got quite excited at this point). Now think about the subterranean world below us where the strange folk live.’ ‘Zombies!’ shouted naughty boy number one. ‘Zombies in Bugattis!’ yelled his friend. A nice little girl still in her Halloween costume from the night before asked me if the wolf from my book The Wolf from the Ridge was a friendly wolf. That started off a ‘favourite pets’ discussion. ‘Did you know,’ I told the children. ‘They say dogs are 97 per cent wolf and as dogs evolve they look a bit less like them? If you were to look at a photograph from a hundred years ago of a breed of dog it would look very different to now.’ ‘A wolf? Really?’ Naughty boy number one sat bolt upright and grabbing his friend they ran off. Ah, well, I thought, I’ve lost a couple of my audience, and went on answering questions and helping the children to write their stories. After about ten minutes back bounced the two boys with a book and a smartphone. ‘Look, Miss,’ said naughty boy number one. ‘Is that what you mean?’ He had a website up all about the evolution of dogs and had brought along a dog book they’d found as back-up. All children have an imagination, but it needs a trigger to start it. Finding the right technique may not be easy but it’s certainly worth it. And just to finish off – a mother of one of the children came up to me after the group had disbanded. ‘I wish I still had my imagination,' she said. 'I don’t know when I lost it. Probably when I was about their age.’ She gestured at two eight-year-olds feverishly colouring in their rainbow dog pictures. Do we really lose our imagination or can it be lit up at any age? I like to hope we are all still capable of dreaming-up amazing things at any point in our lives.